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Being a Christian REQUIRES holding specific beliefs. Free thought has no requirements, it's free. It's like when someone says "I'm a Christian because I'm a skeptic" or "I don't have enough faith to be an atheist". A skeptic is someone who does not believe a claim until there is sufficient evidence to support believing that the claim is true, and it doesn't take faith to Not believe something. And your not a free thinker if you have required beliefs and restrictions on what you can doubt, that's not freedom.

I said, "Yes" to the poll. I know one Christian who is. People like him are rare. The majority of Christians cannot be. They are arrogant. They do not want to learn anything other than what they were taught in catechism of Sunday school.

Only partially in my view. They might not be excercising free thought in terms of their religious beliefs but they can be free thinkers when it comes to other things. Yes there's some cognitive dissonance there but still. It's not impossible.

I have known very dedicated Christians that believed in evolution, so they were outside main stream Christian doctrine. Some were prochoice. I thought of them as free thinkers. I think it is wrong to view all of them in the same light. I have seen secular critical thinking in religious people, and their attraction to religion was to sit in the light of the stained glass and meditate. All of them are not Zealots. I am pretty sure that most of them would not die for their faith.

There are plenty that don't believe in heaven or hell, or that their God is a judging/unfair one. And theres always laws to hold anyone back - for one, not everyone lives where freedom of speech is a thing (and theres definitely a lot of shutdown in the US as is).

Going by the definition, you cannot. Some have claimed that you can be and that's how they transitioned. I do not believe this to be true. Just because the journey may seem longer than an instant, it's really not. Kind of like being pregnant, whatever your definition of pregnancy is, you are either in that state, or you are not. (e.g. If you consider it to be implantation of a fertilized egg onto the uterine wall, the egg is either implanted, or it is not.) The same is true for being a Christian. There are probably a ton of definitions for it, but I think there is one that makes the most sense: you are a Christian if you believe in the divinity of Jesus Christ. All the other definitions that take into account teachings and practices fail us because they are so vastly different and contradictory. But if you believe Jesus IS God, it bypasses all the other junk. But whatever your definition, it seems as though you either are, or you are not a Christian. Either I believe that god exists and Jesus is that god, or I don't. Let's face it, if you kind of believe or you think he's part god, then you don't believe he's god. And according to the definition of freethinker: "Freethought is a philosophical viewpoint which holds that positions regarding truth should be formed on the basis of logic, reason, and empiricism, rather than authority, tradition, revelation, or other dogma" it cannot coexist with Christian for there can be no belief in the divinity of Jesus that is formed on logic, reason, and empirical data.

@Jeff
The Bible either is the Universal truth and Knowledge or it is a lie. No thinking required, you got the sheep herders guild to the Universe. Why explore or think any more?

Since everyone lies to different degrees, and man wrote the Bible, then the Bible must be a lie.

If the Bible is the be all and end akl. If your God asked you to kill your son or daughter to show your faith. Would you without thinking?. I would kill God before killing my daughter, yet I don't have too, because I can't imagine running out of ideas to kill anyone.

Just look at all the graveyards and tombstones worldwide who died written in the name of God. What were they thinking?

Could be a free thinker about anything which isn't related to religion (though there aren't really that many things this would apply to, since an omnipotent god would trump science, and everything is tied together by science)...

I would think of Science as a branch in the tree of life. Don't think God or science as the be all and end all. I feel in the middle of extreme poles of atheist and Religion. When a group gets onesided or extreme, that limits your thinking.

@Druvius I'm not defining it, the tenets of faith are. Saying you are two things in an effort to prove those things can coexist (you said you were a freethinker and a Christian) and then backing out and saying that you're not one of the things (not a believer in the divinity of Jesus) is a waste of everyone's time. Plus the "God bless" is pretty non-freethinkery of you...

I have two perspectives. One is the one I grew up in. Everyone is a freethinker...except faith..."accept faith son...it'll be much better." This was in one of many rebel flag flying neighborhoods, when the only identifications with it were rebellion and being southern in my mind, but most others not so. Affiliated or not, if you were there you were probably a white supremacist.

Then there are those among our scientists, artists...there may even be some clergy left...who...I guess have compartmentalized so well they can be at once our greatest intellects, humanitarians and philanthropists.